A system having objectives, and having coaxial illumination integrated into the microscope body, is known from the existing art, contrasting adapters being located in the microscope body. The known system encompasses a zoom microscope in which the coaxial illumination infeed is located between the objective and zoom body. The objectives can be exchanged.
Also known from the existing art is an incident light axis for compound microscopes which is positioned between the objective or objective turret and an observation tube.
Also known from the existing art is a modular, coaxial illumination system for a microscope which is positioned between the objective and zoom. This known coaxial module is used in particular for bright-field coaxial illumination in stereo microscopes.
The known systems for microscope illumination have the disadvantage, however, that a separate illumination module is positioned above the objective between the zoom and the objective. In addition, in order to carry out polarization microscopy and to suppress an intrusive bright background in the image, a lambda/4 plate must be mounted as a separate component beneath the objective. Because of this positioning of the separate illumination module or lambda/4 plate as a separate component, more space is required in the observation beam path of the microscope. The known systems are therefore not optimized in terms of their overall height. The construction of the known systems, having the separate illumination module or the lambda/4 plate as a separate module, is furthermore relatively complicated. The constituents of the separate illumination module are furthermore not specific for different objectives. The image quality of the overall system is thereby decreased, since the illumination module must be designed for all usable objectives. A further disadvantage of the known systems is that the clear working distance (i.e. the open space between the objective and object plane) that can be used for manipulation of the object is not optimized.